Chennai: Tamil film stars Surya, R. Madhavan, Siva Kumar and Tamil Nadu's minister for higher education Thangam Thennarasu released a short film here to promote education awareness amongst school dropouts.

They urged the people to support education, especially amongst the dropouts a majority of whom come from poor families.

"The idea is to give the society a gift that will forever trigger an inherent sense of social responsibility. The government helped the making of the film," said Thennarasu at the release function here Thursday.

Directed by Priya, the short film entitled "Herovaa, Zerovaa" (Hero or Zero) was made through a cooperative effort by Agaram Foundation, a voluntary forum, the state government and a number of leading lights of the southern film industry, including actor-couple Surya-Jyothika, Madhavan, Vijay and director Mani Ratnam.

"In the make-believe world of cinema, a school dropout may become an all-conquering hero, but in real life, such a person has very few chances of making it big due to social constraints. Hence, we jointly made this film," Tamil actor Surya said.

Echoing the view, Madhavan said: "This non-profit venture of film industry professionals is aimed at motivating everyone in the society to continue the process of education beyond constraints of age or position because the learning curve never ends."